Unter
by Sythe
Summary: The Konoha councilors have been murdered. Naruto is the suspect. A village is on the verge of tearing itself apart.


**Unter**

Disclaimer: I don't own

Beta: Michelle Tran

**Chapter 1:**** The Sink**

**

* * *

**

"'_All the better to eat you with!' And with that he jumped out of bed, jumped on top of poor Little Red Cap, and ate her up."_

- Little Red Riding Hood, Charless Perrault, 1697 -

* * *

The council advisers of the village hidden in the Leaf were murdered at exactly midnight.

Koharu Utatane died in her bedroom, alone and without any signs of struggling.

Homura Mitokado was found hanging from the ceiling of his office.

Danzo Shimura's corpse was identified amidst the welded together corpses of two ANBU defects in the rubble of ROOT's underground headquarters.

The main suspect was a fifteen years old Naruto Uzumaki. Not only were his finger prints confirmed on the victim's bodies, but Naruto himself was found on the crime scenes – all three of them.

This was June 3rd of the third year of Hokage Tsunade Senju's reign.

.

.

.

By the next morning, Naruto was already moved to the maximum level prison room, and by noon he was scheduled to a meeting with the Hokage.

Tsunade came in and looked at him through two layers of security glass and a set of 5 inch steel bars. Her hair was tied back in one messy pony tail. Shadows under her eyes. No makeup. She waited for exactly one minute, then started.

"For the security of the public, this meeting is recorded. All conversations will be encrypted and can be called on by Sec.80 Department at any time. This is your only warning."

Too formal. Tsunade sounded as if she had forced herself to eat cement and vomit them into those three lines. There was another short pause that made Naruto wonder if she was going to keep vomiting, but something broke in Tsunade's eyes and she uttered one single question, one that actually meant all the questions she did not dare ask.

"Why?"

Naruto looked away. Seeing Tsunade like this was hard. It made him want to be a boy again, made him want to throw himself at the bars and yell, and cry, and beg her for help. The fact that he still had on his orange and black jumpsuit made the prison room even more surreal... like he was going to wake up any moment now and find himself in his dingy apartment.

But that wasn't going to happen. Not in a million years.

Naruto steeled himself and looked Tsunade in the eye.

"Did you read the files?"

"... Yes."

"Then you know what they did to me."

"That..." She drew in one breath. Her face reddened. "So you **did** kill them."

"I did. They deserved it. They wanted it. Homura put the rope on himself. Koharu slit her own throat. Only Danzo..."

"Shut. Up! How _dare _you!"

The red in Tsunade's face spread down to her neck, then into her eyes. She looked like she might either cry or punch through the security and kill him right there. She reined in herself in time – she could hear the buzzing recorder.

"They... they have someone monitoring you, don't they? You're the Hokage but... you were close to me."

This, Tsunade neither confirmed nor denied.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry doesn't cut it, Naruto."

"Look I... I really do love you. You're like a mom to me. But... you know what they did Baa-chan..." Tsunade flinched at the pet name. "... Out of the nine major clans of Kohona, the direct heirs of seven of them graduated in the same year and took the same chuunin test as me. One was on my team, but Sasuke was so protected that I never knew if they really did anything on him. But the rest... Baa-chan..."

Tsunade did not react to the name this time.

"Hinata of the Hyuuga, Shikamaru of the Nara, Ino, Chouji, Kiba, Shino... Nobody in the upper echelons of Konoha thought that was a coincidence, but even **they** didn't know the whole truth. Baa-chan, I think we all remember it... somehow... even though our memories were erased, we were still drawn to each other. I think our bodies remembered."

"You can't do this. You will destroy this village! The clans will revolt!"

"... I know. But it's the right thing. Please, Baa-chan, help us."

Tsunade stared at him, then at the bee-hive shaped recorder on the wall. When she turned back, her eyes were steel.

"This meeting ends here. Think about what you've done, Naruto."

Then she was gone.

Alone, Naruto sat on the prison bed and stared at the glass wall where Tsunade stood just moments ago. They'd let him out, he knew. They simply couldn't keep him in here. They wouldn't dare. The clans would tear them apart.

Naruto was the catalyst, the fuse to their explosion. They needed him.

Plus, Ino's father also knew. He was the one who started everything.

Naruto pulled his coat tighter around himself. It was so cold in here, so quiet. It was hard to imagine it was the middle of the day outside, a hot, humid summer with pretty girls in yukata playing with their paper fans and water balloons.

Konoha was such a beautiful village that it was hard to remember what they really were...

... Soldiers.

The houses, even when they had daisies and daffodils in their backyards, and fat calico cats on their roofs, would always be a part of the...

... ARMY of Fire nation.

Hard to believe. Hard to remember too. But even if Naruto intentionally forgot, this was a place where, sometimes, murders can happen and none would dare point their fingers, or children can disappear...

... and be forgotten by their parents.

It had started when one boy disappeared eight years ago. It had started again when the same boy fell asleep in his bath tub two weeks ago.

The guard shut the main circuit and threw Naruto's cell into total darkness. He didn't care. This time, he wouldn't fall asleep again.

* * *

Two weeks earlier

* * *

It began with a dead body.

The girl's name was Hana Yuha, nineteen, an apprentice nurse from the Konoha Central Hospital. She had a pooch named Curl Tail and a ninety square foot, one-room, shared-bath apartment she barely managed to afford on her first pay check. No balcony of course. That would mean another five hundred Ryo and she needed that for the monthly sendings to her retiree parents.

She was an only child and was proud of her duty to support her progenitors. It was a hard job, especially when she was scraping pay check by pay check, but she knew she could do it. Her nurse work was good and said to be very promising. She might even make head nurse's assistant by the end of the year. Imagine that – head nurse's assistant. What an honour, and a bigger salary too.

In short, Hana Yuha's future was bright and it was only beginning when Naruto Uzumaki abruptly ended it with a half-formed Rasenshuriken on May 20th, the third year of Hokage Tsunade Senju's reign.

.

.

.

Naruto was standing outside operation theatre B1 when they wheeled Hana Yuha's corpse out. He had his hands wringing each other and his face as pale and bloodless as the corpse on the gurney.

They hadn't managed to save her. She was dead. She was _really_ dead. Naruto didn't even know her name.

The gurney stopped right in front of Naruto, flaunting the dead girl's body. There was a slight depression on the cloth cover where, underneath, was the hole the Rasenshuriken had carved out. There was still a smile on her face. She had been out walking her dog when Naruto ran into her. Death had come so sudden that it froze happiness right where it was. A moment in time, sunshine, dog barks, spaghetti strap dress, right before the whirling blue light connected.

Two people ran through the door towards the gurney, a man and a woman.

"Hana! Hana!" They screamed.

Oh no.

Naruto looked away. He wished he could disappear right now.

For the first time in his life, he had killed.

The feeling was not what he had imagined. Not triumphant. Not glorious. Not even powerful. Just... something.

From where he stood, Naruto could see the medical supply rack in the operation theatre. A row of syringes and clear bottles stood out. Opana analgesic. The strongest painkiller that was still relatively safe.

All of a sudden, Naruto wondered if painkillers worked on the non-physical type of pain too. If they did, he would steal them right now and inject the needles into himself until he overdosed.

* * *

Tsunade made him wait for two hours in her office. When she finally came in, Naruto's jacket was soaked with sweat, and he had already conjured up a hundred or so theories on what Ibiki Morino would do to him.

"Un. Ac.**Ceptable**!" She barked the moment she was through the door.

"Baa-chan!"

"Sit. Down!"

He sat down, almost bowled the chair over in his haste.

Tsunade pulled a slip of paper from her plastic file, breathed in, then faced him at last.

"Let me see if I got the correct story." She read from the paper. "You were working on an upgrade of Rasengan."

"I... I was going to call it Rasenshuriken."

"After you left Kakashi Hatake and Yamato Tenzo on training ground twenty-two, you went back to your apartment. On the way, you ran into Hana Yuha... _while performing this Rasenshuriken._"

The moment Tsunade put the paper down, the air in the room suddenly turned to glue.

"I didn't mean it, Baa-chan! It was an accident. I swear! I didn't see her over that corner. She just... she just... appeared! Out of the blue!"

Tsunade cut in right there.

"I. Am not. Baa-chan. In this room, you will address me as the leader of your village."

She breathed again, loud and heavy. Naruto had never known she could look like that before, like she really was fifty-something.

"Naruto." He leaned forward at the sound of his name, somehow, the only thing reassuring in this nightmare. "The Rasengan is an A-rank assassination technique. That means _kill on contact_. Do you understand?"

He nodded.

"Any changes would automatically qualify it to S-rank. Are you telling me that you were _playing_ with a possible S-rank ninjutsu **on the public streets of Konoha?**"

Naruto flinched. He hadn't thought about that. He was just making use of dead time, thinking that he could get a bit more work on the Rasenshuriken before he hit home and rest. He hadn't thought at all. God, how could he be so stupid?

There was a long pause when Tsunade waited for a reply that Naruto didn't have. Finally, when she was done waiting, Tsunade put her face in her hands, her elbows on the table top. When she spoke, she did so through the protection of her cupped fingers.

"Do you know what the village council will make of this?"

No, he didn't. But he could imagine.

"Do you know what I think whenever I look at you?"

He shook his head.

"You walked by my tower the other day. I saw you from the window. You wore only a tank top. It was a hot day. You put your hand up and popped up a Rasengan. You used it like a fan. Imagine that. An A-class assassination technique... used as a fan! And there were people walking around you, walking two or three feet from you. Did you know my heart nearly stopped when I saw that?"

He didn't know.

"Then another day I heard from my councillor that you taught the Rasengan to Konohamaru. I didn't believe her. I laughed at her even... thought she was joking. An A-rank assassination technique... in the hands of a twelve years old kid. Now that's a scary thought. I had a scare too, for about a second, but I thought you wouldn't do that. Not to me."

Then suddenly her hands flew off her face and Naruto saw her eyes. They were red and watery.

"Do you know why I never talked to you about that?"

"... N... no..."

"Because I was stupid" She paused once. "I was a woman. I told myself I should talk to you, tear you out for that. It's my job! Cause I'm the_ adult_. And you're just a kid. You didn't know a **fucking** thing! I looked at you and I thought. He doesn't know anything. He doesn't know what he is. A soldier. A potential killer. And he doesn't know what I am. I am the General of the ninja ARMY of Fire Nation. I'm responsible for the lives of fifty thousand people inside this village and five million inside the border of Hi no Kuni. And I... **I**... the Hokage, couldn't even talk to a fifteen years old kid about what the **fuck** he's going to do in the next thirty years of his career. Kill people! For the sake of this nation!"

Then her voice turned whispery, as if all her strength had left her and she was just a weak, ordinary woman.

"Do you know why I never talked to you about that?"

Naruto shook his head. It was the only thing he could do. He had rolled himself into a trembling ball on the chair, compressing himself smaller... smaller. He wished he could just disappear right now... or die... right on this spot.

"... Because whenever I looked at you grinning and doing stupid things, I couldn't bring myself to. I thought, 'Let him have his childhood for a little longer. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Let him think nothing of what being a ninja means.' I thought if I could protect your innocence for _one more minute_ it was still going to be worth it... Well... look where that's got me..."

Another long pause before Tsunade stood up and walked to the window. She had her eyes on the Hokage monument, on the faces of her forefathers, when she continued.

"Go home."

"... But... but... aren't you going to put me in prison?"

Tsunade didn't even look back.

"Go. Home. Naruto Uzumaki."

Naruto ran out of the door.

* * *

Naruto ran into a man right outside of Tsunade's office, blond hair, blue eyes, Ino's father. Inoichi grabbed him by the shoulders and said _blahblahblah_ but all Naruto could think was.

He knew.

He shook Inoichi off and got out of the tower. When he hit the street, the amount of people overwhelmed him. He never noticed there were so many people in Konoha and that they all stayed up so late.

They couldn't have heard what happened yet. Security had clamped down right on the news afterwards. But whenever he felt some one's gaze on his back, it felt like they were looking into him, looking into what he had done, and they were calling – roaring for his blood.

He chose the longest and least used road back home. But just as luck would have it, he ran into nearly everyone.

Hinata, Shino, Kiba.

Kiba stopped him before he could get past them.

"Hey, man. I heard." He said "Look, don't sweat it. It's gonna be okay. Shit happens sometimes, you know. Accidents. It's a ninja village. I know how it feels. Just last month, my Gatsuga bowled this old guy over..."

No, you don't, bastard.

Kurenai and Anko flew past along with the neon street lights.

The two chuunin examiners.

Needle-head Ibiki.

Gai, Lee, ...

It became unbearable.

Two blocks to his apartment building, Kakashi and Yamato appeared.

Kakashi didn't say anything. He just looked at Naruto. But there was something in his look that made Naruto want to close his hands around Kakashi's throat and kept them there until the jounin stopped breathing.

Kakashi wasn't innocent. Kakashi killed Haku, and Zabuza, and who knew how many people before that. And how dare Kakashi look at him like that? ... Like... like...

"We have a mission tomorrow morning," said Kakashi, cutting right into Naruto's thoughts "A-rank. Reinforcements to Shikamaru's team. Two Akatsuki are too much for them. But you won't be coming. We'll take Sakura."

Alright. Cool. Just go. I don't wanna see your face either.

Yamato put his hand on Naruto's shoulder as he walked past.

"You take care." He said. And just like that, Naruto remembered something.

"Hana Yuha."

"What?"

"Her name. Hana Yuha."

Yamato shot him a blank look.

"The first person I killed. I only knew her name when they told me... from a piece of paper."

* * *

Home was cold, and dark, and smelt of stale ramen.

It was five past midnight and Naruto's body was gelatin inside his jumpsuit. But he couldn't sleep, not with the thoughts that were frog-hopping around in his head.

He went to the window and opened it, then changed his mind when he saw a flash in the next building and thought they were ANBU. Of course they were ANBU. Maybe from Tsunade. Maybe from the council. What did he think? That they would let a killer go scot-free?

He sat on his bed and glared at his digital clock. The clock flashed 1:05 AM. He felt wretched. What were they going to do to him? He hated not knowing. 2:15. He was so stupid so stupid so stupid.

3 AM.

The end of childhood was painful.

"I'm... I'm an adult." He said out loud in the dark room. It was a funny thought. The idea that killing a person could elevate him to adulthood will all of its seriousness, with its height and its responsibility.

But it was true.

He wasn't kiddie-Naruto anymore. He was adult-Naruto now. Today, adult-Naruto killed a girl, a pretty girl. It was an accident but adult-Naruto was still responsible for it. And tomorrow, adult-Naruto would stand before the criminal court of Konoha, face his trial, and take responsibility.

* * *

When Naruto crawled into his bathroom, it was already 4:00 AM. He peeled his jumpsuit off in ten minutes of slug-a-motion. Dried blood fell like red snow flakes to the ground. He got to his bathtub and opened the hot water valve. He wasn't sure what would happen tomorrow, but if shits really were going to fall out of the skies, then at least he didn't want to look and smelt like how he felt inside.

The water was slow to fill. The bathtub was a two-by two, traditional ofuro. It was Naruto's favourite piece of furniture in his whole apartment on the virtue of its sheer sturdiness. It wasn't easy to damage a well-made ofuro, unlike beds... or couches. No soft place to stick a knife into. They would need an axe, and that was too heavy to lug around.

He had slept many nights in the same ofuro whenever some random asshole with a thing to prove had felt the need to redecorate his bedroom. He was small then, a mere three feet tall, and this same ofuro had felt like big wooden hands closing in, holding him inside, keeping him safe.

It was silly and childish and not something he'd ever want anybody to know, but right now, he needed that. Even a smidgen of that old peace would help.

He moved on auto-mode, stood under the running nozzle, slathered on soap, scrubbed, rinsed.

Just in time, the bath was full. He stepped in, sat down, and disintegrated.

Peace. Just like the old days.

In the next five minutes, he managed to do what he hadn't been able to in the last four hours. He fell asleep right in the bath.

Because he had been too tired to finish the job properly, he never discovered a dirt mark on his shoulder bone, right on the spot that Inoichi Yamanaka had made a grab at him and shot his mouth off. It was shaped like a Y with the left stick broken and bent down. As he slept, the mark worked its magic as planned. And Naruto sank down into the red water_... down..._

_

* * *

_

Training area twenty-two was deserted when Naruto got to it.

It took a full ten minutes for Naruto to remember that his training was already cancelled. Kakashi and Yamato were gone... Sakura too. The field was too big for him alone. One question in Naruto's head echoed in the vast, empty space.

What do I do?

No ANBU greeted him that morning, no police either. He almost wished they were there. It would spare him the uncertainty at least.

Murder. Manslaughter. Weren't those the terms they used for what he had done? What would they do to him? The council. All the people who'd been waiting for demon fox's blood. Why did Tsunade let him go yesterday? What did she want him to do?

Was he supposed to make a run for it? Was that why? And run where? Away from Konoha? Away from the only place he had ever known? Become a missing nin?

From future Hokage to missing nin. Within twenty-four hours, his life was turned completely upside down.

Please, somebody. Can somebody tell me what to do? Anyone?

Then the force of routine had kicked in and drew him to the training ground. The streets were deserted when he slipped through them. It was too early in the morning. Still, he kept expecting some ANBU to swoop down on him–"You're under arrest, Uzumaki." Or maybe one of his friends–"Hey, Naruto, we're gonna get you outta here."

And then he was here, alone. And that question still didn't go away.

What to _dodododo..._

There was no one here with him, no friend, no teacher, not even Iruka. Did Iruka know?

Naruto hated thinking. He wasn't good at it, not like Sakura. He was a creature of guts and action. He wished he could Rasengan the hell out of this problem but the Rasengan was the root of the problem to begin with.

The hateful thoughts beat at him until he was exhausted, until he crumbled under its weight and passed out on the training ground.

.

.

.

When he woke, it was already night, and he was so hungry he could eat a horse. He welcomed the sensation. It made things a little bit more familiar.

Ichiraku, came his first thought.

He hesitated at the thought of going there, but where else? He'd run out of home stocks, and there was nowhere else in Konoha that would tolerate him.

Maybe Ichiraku didn't know yet. That could be it. Ninja had their own network, but not so much the civilians. It was a risk, but at least it was still better than sitting here and doing nothing. Even if he was rejected, well, that was fine too. He knew how to deal with rejection.

With his mind made up, Naruto headed to Ichiraku Ramen. He chose the non-civilian path: the roof top. When he got there, Ichiraku was closed. That was odd. Teuchi worked late. Many of his customers were night owls. Naruto made a half-hearted attempt at beating the door. He gave up after a while.

So that was it. Even Ichiraku couldn't stand him now.

He laughed out loud, the sound of his laughter not the rich full-belly sound it used to be, but thin and sharp like metal nails on a chalkboard. He stood there in front of the closed down Ramen bar for maybe thirty minutes, or maybe an hour – who the hell cared anyway? – before making his way to Konoha shopping district.

He was hungry. That was the only thing he understood and the only thing that wasn't one big question in his head. So what if there were people there and that they probably knew about Hana Yuha? He dared them to do worse than Teuchi and Ayame.

He was done with hysteria. Now, he just felt tired, hungry, and maybe a bit suicidal. But wouldn't that be fun? Wouldn't that solve all of his problems? _Woops, the boy is dead now. No need to think anymore. Everyone! Show's over!_

He walked in the middle of the road, in full view, flaunting.

Then he realized something strange. Out of the two thousand commuters that walked Konoha Main Street every day, none was here. The streets were completely empty except for him. The houses were lighted and lacking of its occupants. The shops were open, their neon signs up and running, but no one was inside.

Konoha had a population of fifty thousand people. Only Naruto Uzumaki was in town.

* * *

**End Chapter 1.**

**

* * *

**

A/N: No pairing.


End file.
